Thursday, June 16, 2016

Jake and Mike

Sorry, here's the picture of Jake again with Mom and me. He is in the white shirt. The other man is Mike Malean; also a recovering alcoholic in the Ward. I think we have good news. I hope tonight was a good night; he was taken to a local bishop who is also a professional addiction counselor. He has agreed to go to the weekly Church Addiction Recovery Program (ARP) meeting, come to church, and I think to go to AA meetings multiple times per week. He does recognize that his method, which is just trying to do this in isolation, isn't working so maybe our method will work. However, he might also be slightly motivated by his mother, who has been funding him, has told him she's tired of his lack of progress and so she'll cut off his funding if he doesn't get on the ball!

I'll find out more tomorrow I hope. I met with him last Thursday (week ago) and we talked about the priesthood and temple blessings of family. I think he liked what he heard.

Lots of work ahead for him; also lots of miserable times as he stops with the drugs and cuts back on the alcohol. You can cut off cold turkey from drugs and be miserable but not die. But if you go cold turkey from alcoholism, you can die. So it all has to be carefully managed. We'll get him through this with professional counseling and hopefully admittance to a professional detox facility. AND lots of prayer, friendship, and PH blessings. We want so much to help him get through this and I look forward to the day when he can exercise the Aaronic Priesthood, which he has, gain true testimony for himself, and go to the temple for baptisms.